Jeddah: Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Prince Faisal bin Farhan and his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amirabdollahian met in Beijing to discuss the next steps of their diplomatic rapprochement, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported on Thursday.
This was the first formal meeting of the countries’ most senior diplomats in more than seven years.
In a joint statement issued after the meeting, the foreign ministers “emphasized the importance of following up on the implementation of the Beijing Agreement and its activation in a way that enhances mutual trust, expands the fields of cooperation and helps create security, stability and prosperity in the region,” SPA reported.
The Kingdom and Iran have also agreed to reopen their diplomatic missions within 60 days of resuming ties, and will proceed with the necessary measures to ensure that happens in Riyadh and Tehran, as well as in Jeddah and Mashaad, where their general consulates were previously stationed, according to SPA.
The ministers also affirmed that the technical teams on both sides will discuss ways to enhance cooperation between the two countries, including the resumption of flights, opening of embassies and consulates and mutual visits by official delegations and private sector members.
They will also work on facilitating visas for the citizens of both countries, including for Umrah.
“The two sides expressed their aspiration to intensify consultative meetings and discuss ways of cooperation to achieve more positive prospects for relations, given the natural resources and economic potential that the two countries possess, and great opportunities to achieve mutual benefits,” the joint statement added.
“The two sides also agreed to enhance their cooperation in every field that would help achieve security and stability in the region and serve the interests of its countries and people.”
The ministers also “expressed their thanks and appreciation to the Chinese side for hosting this meeting.”
Saudi Arabia severed ties with Iran in 2016 after its diplomatic missions in Iran were stormed by protestors.
At the time, the Kingdom asked Iranian diplomats to leave the country within 48 hours while it evacuated its embassy staff from Tehran.
In a related development, Iran also appointed an ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, another key gulf nation.
The UAE, which has business and trade ties with Iran stretching back more than a century, downgraded relations with Iran following Saudi Arabia severing its ties with Iran following the storming of the Saudi embassy in Iran.
In a step change to years of hostility between Iran and Saudi Arabia that had threatened stability and security in the Gulf and helped fuel conflicts in the Middle East.
ABOARD COTAM UNITÉ (FRANCE’S AIR FORCE ONE) — Europe must reduce its dependency on the United States and avoid getting dragged into a confrontation between China and the U.S. over Taiwan, French President Emmanuel Macron said in an interview on his plane back from a three-day state visit to China.
Speaking with POLITICO and two French journalists after spending around six hours with Chinese President Xi Jinping during his trip, Macron emphasized his pet theory of “strategic autonomy” for Europe, presumably led by France, to become a “third superpower.”
He said “the great risk” Europe faces is that it “gets caught up in crises that are not ours, which prevents it from building its strategic autonomy,” while flying from Beijing to Guangzhou, in southern China, aboard COTAM Unité, France’s Air Force One.
Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party have enthusiastically endorsed Macron’s concept of strategic autonomy and Chinese officials constantly refer to it in their dealings with European countries. Party leaders and theorists in Beijing are convinced the West is in decline and China is on the ascendant and that weakening the transatlantic relationship will help accelerate this trend.
“The paradox would be that, overcome with panic, we believe we are just America’s followers,” Macron said in the interview. “The question Europeans need to answer … is it in our interest to accelerate [a crisis] on Taiwan? No. The worse thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the U.S. agenda and a Chinese overreaction,” he said.
Just hours after his flight left Guangzhou headed back to Paris, China launched large military exercises around the self-ruled island of Taiwan, which China claims as its territory but the U.S. has promised to arm and defend.
Those exercises were a response to Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen’s 10-day diplomatic tour of Central American countries that included a meeting with Republican U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy while she transited in California. People familiar with Macron’s thinking said he was happy Beijing had at least waited until he was out of Chinese airspace before launching the simulated “Taiwan encirclement” exercise.
Beijing has repeatedly threatened to invade in recent years and has a policy of isolating the democratic island by forcing other countries to recognize it as part of “one China.”
Taiwan talks
Macron and Xi discussed Taiwan “intensely,” according to French officials accompanying the president, who appears to have taken a more conciliatory approach than the U.S. or even the European Union.
“Stability in the Taiwan Strait is of paramount importance,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who accompanied Macron for part of his visit, said she told Xi during their meeting in Beijing last Thursday. “The threat [of] the use of force to change the status quo is unacceptable.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping and French President Emmanuel Macron in Guangdong on April 7, 2023 | Pool Photo by Jacques Witt / AFP via Getty Images
Xi responded by saying anyone who thought they could influence Beijing on Taiwan was deluded.
Macron appears to agree with that assessment.
“Europeans cannot resolve the crisis in Ukraine; how can we credibly say on Taiwan, ‘watch out, if you do something wrong we will be there’? If you really want to increase tensions that’s the way to do it,” he said.
“Europe is more willing to accept a world in which China becomes a regional hegemon,” said Yanmei Xie, a geopolitics analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics. “Some of its leaders even believe such a world order may be more advantageous to Europe.”
In his trilateral meeting with Macron and von der Leyen last Thursday in Beijing, Xi Jinping went off script on only two topics — Ukraine and Taiwan — according to someone who was present in the room.
“Xi was visibly annoyed for being held responsible for the Ukraine conflict and he downplayed his recent visit to Moscow,” this person said. “He was clearly enraged by the U.S. and very upset over Taiwan, by the Taiwanese president’s transit through the U.S. and [the fact that] foreign policy issues were being raised by Europeans.”
In this meeting, Macron and von der Leyen took similar lines on Taiwan, this person said. But Macron subsequently spent more than four hours with the Chinese leader, much of it with only translators present, and his tone was far more conciliatory than von der Leyen’s when speaking with journalists.
‘Vassals’ warning
Macron also argued that Europe had increased its dependency on the U.S. for weapons and energy and must now focus on boosting European defense industries.
He also suggested Europe should reduce its dependence on the “extraterritoriality of the U.S. dollar,” a key policy objective of both Moscow and Beijing.
Macron has long been a proponent of strategic autonomy for Europe | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images
“If the tensions between the two superpowers heat up … we won’t have the time nor the resources to finance our strategic autonomy and we will become vassals,” he said.
Russia, China, Iran and other countries have been hit by U.S. sanctions in recent years that are based on denying access to the dominant dollar-denominated global financial system. Some in Europe have complained about “weaponization” of the dollar by Washington, which forces European companies to give up business and cut ties with third countries or face crippling secondary sanctions.
While sitting in the stateroom of his A330 aircraft in a hoodie with the words “French Tech” emblazoned on the chest, Macron claimed to have already “won the ideological battle on strategic autonomy” for Europe.
He did not address the question of ongoing U.S. security guarantees for the Continent, which relies heavily on American defense assistance amid the first major land war in Europe since World War II.
As one of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and the only nuclear power in the EU, France is in a unique position militarily. However, the country has contributed far less to the defense of Ukraine against Russia’s invasion than many other countries.
As is common in France and many other European countries, the French President’s office, known as the Elysée Palace, insisted on checking and “proofreading” all the president’s quotes to be published in this article as a condition of granting the interview. This violates POLITICO’s editorial standards and policy, but we agreed to the terms in order to speak directly with the French president. POLITICO insisted that it cannot deceive its readers and would not publish anything the president did not say. The quotes in this article were all actually said by the president, but some parts of the interview in which the president spoke even more frankly about Taiwan and Europe’s strategic autonomy were cut out by the Elysée.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
Karachi: At least four Pakistan Army soldiers were killed on Saturday in a terror attack along the Pakistan-Iran border in Balochistan’s Kech district, according to the military’s media wing.
“On April 1, 2023, a group of terrorists operating from the Iranian side attacked a routine border patrol of Pakistani security forces along the Pakistan-Iran Border in Jalgai Sector, district Kech,” an Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) statement said.
The ISPR said that “necessary contact” with the Iranian side was being made for “effective action against terrorists” on their territory and to prevent such incidents in the future.
Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah condemned the attack and paid tribute to those killed.
“The sons of the country are laying down their lives to protect their land, the whole nation salutes them, the nation is united in the war against terrorism,” he tweeted, adding that “this scourge will be eradicated”.
In January, four security personnel were killed during “terrorist activity” from across the Pakistan-Iran border in Balochistan’s Panjgur district.
The incident was condemned by Pakistan’s senior officials and the Foreign Office asked Iran to punish the culprits and ensure a thorough investigation.
PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron is jetting off on an ambitious diplomatic mission to woo Beijing away from Moscow. Officials in Washington wish him luck with that.
France hopes to dissuade China’s leader Xi Jinping from getting any cozier with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and wants the Chinese instead to play a mediation role over the war in Ukraine.
However, it is unclear what leverage Macron has — and the backdrop to his three-day trip starting Tuesday isn’t easy. Europe continues to reel from the impact of cutting off trade ties to Russia and geopolitical tensions are ratcheting up between China and the U.S., the world’s two biggest economies.
The French president wants to play a more personal card with his Chinese counterpart, after drawing fierce criticism for hours of fruitless phone calls with Putin last year — an effort that failed to stop Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Macron is expected to spend several hours in discussions with Xi, and the trip includes a visit to a city that holds personal value for the Chinese president.
“You can count with one hand the number of world leaders who could have an in-depth discussion with Xi,” said an Elysée advisor who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
But while expectations in France of a breakthrough are moderate, the view among other Western officials is even bleaker.
Given Macron’s failed attempts at playing a center-stage role in resolving conflicts, such as stopping the war in Ukraine or salvaging the Iran nuclear deal, there are doubts in the U.S. and elsewhere that this trip will deliver major results.
The White House has little expectation that Macron will achieve a breakthrough, according to three administration officials not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations. Xi is unlikely to act on Macron’s requests or curtail any of China’s assertive moves in the Pacific, the officials said.
White House aides ruefully recalled Macron’s failed attempts to insert himself as a peacemaker with Putin on the eve of the invasion more than a year ago and anticipate more of the same this time.
There is also some concern in the Biden administration about France’s potential coziness with China at a time when tensions between Washington and Beijing are at their highest in decades, even though the White House is supportive of the trip, the three officials said. There is no ill will toward Macron’s efforts in Beijing, they stressed.
But what might further complicate Macron’s endeavors is an emerging feud between the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who is traveling with the president, and the Chinese.
Last Thursday, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen delivered a keynote address on EU-China relations at the European Policy Centre in Brussels | Valeria Mongelli/AFP via Getty Images
In a high-profile speech on EU-China relations Thursday, von der Leyen urged EU countries to “de-risk” from overdependency on China. She also implied that the EU could terminate the pursuit of a landmark trade deal with China, which was clinched in 2020 but subsequently stalled. Her remarks sparked swift blowback from Chinese diplomats. Fu Cong, China’s ambassador to the European Union, said Friday he was “a little bit disappointed.”
“That speech contained a lot of misrepresentation and misinterpretation of Chinese policies and the Chinese positions,” Fu told state-owned broadcaster CGTN.
The Europeans’ visit will also be scrutinized from a human rights perspective given China’s authoritarian pivot and alleged human rights abuses across the nation.
“President Macron and von der Leyen should not sweep the Chinese government’s deepening authoritarianism under the rug during their visit to Beijing,” said Bénédicte Jeannerod, France director at Human Rights Watch. “They should use their public appearances with Xi Jinping to express strong concerns over widespread rights abuses across China, heightened oppression in Hong Kong and Tibet, and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang.”
Macron’s playbook
Speaking ahead of the visit to Beijing, the French leader said his aim was to “try and involve China as much as possible to put pressure on Russia” on topics such as nuclear weapons.
But will Macron’s charm work on Putin’s “best friend” Xi?
China has sought to position itself as a neutral party on the conflict, even as it has burnished its ties with the nation, importing energy from Russia at a discount. Despite massive international pressure on Moscow, Xi decided to make the Kremlin his first destination for a state visit after he secured a norm-breaking third term as Chinese leader. Meanwhile, POLITICO and other media have reported that the Chinese have made shipments of assault weapons and body armor to Russia.
Western European leaders that were cozy with Moscow just before the war started are now calling for engagement with China, including Macron himself. Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez was in China just days before Macron’s arrival, saying that the world “must listen to its voice” on Russia and Ukraine.
During his visit, which aides have been discussing since at least November last year, Macron will spend several hours with Xi in Beijing, and accompany him to the city of Guangzhou. The Chinese leader’s father, Xi Zhongxun used to work there as Guangdong province governor.
“Altogether the president will spend six to seven hours in discussions with the Chinese leader. The fact that he will be the first French president to visit Guangzhou is also a personal touch, since President Xi’s father used to be a party leader there,” said the Elysee official cited earlier.
The French are hoping the time Macron spends privately with Xi will help win Chinese support on issues such as stopping Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine or halting the illegal transfer of Ukrainian children.
It’s also expected that Macron will try to test Xi’s reaction to Russia’s threat to host nuclear missiles in Belarus, a decision that flies in the face of China’s non-proliferation stance, barely a month after Beijing revealed its 12-point plan for resolving the conflict in Ukraine.
Despite massive international pressure on Moscow, Xi decided to make the Kremlin his first destination for a state visit after he secured a norm-breaking third term as Chinese leader | Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images
“It’s absolutely fundamental to have moments of private encounters,” said Sylvie Bermann, France’s former ambassador to China. “Diplomacy is about playing the long game …With China, I don’t think it is easy to strike up relationships as Westerners. But maybe it means that we’ll be able to talk when the time comes.”
Despite the show of goodwill however, the French president will not hold back from sending “some messages” to Beijing on supporting Russia, particularly when it comes to arms deliveries, a senior French official said.
“We aren’t going to threaten, but send some warnings: The Chinese need to understand that [sending weapons] would have consequences for Europe, for us … We need to remind them of our security interests.” The official said Macron would steer clear of threatening sanctions.
Antoine Bondaz, China specialist at Paris’ Foundation for Strategic Research, questioned the emphasis on trying to bond with Xi. “That’s not how things work in China. It’s not France’s ‘small fry’ president, who spends two hours walking with Xi who will change things, China only understands the balance of power,” he said. “Maybe it works with Putin, who has spent over 400 hours with Xi in the last ten years, but Macron doesn’t know Xi.”
EU unity on show as trade takes center stage
Trade will also feature high on Macron’s priorities as he brings with him a large delegation of business leaders including representatives from EDF, Alstom, Veolia and the aerospace giant Airbus. According to an Elysée official speaking on condition of anonymity, a potential deal with European plane maker Airbus may be in the works, which would come after China ordered 300 planes for €30 billion in 2019.
Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire and Foreign Affairs Minister Catherine Colonna are also traveling with the president.
With the EU facing an emerging trade war between China and the U.S., the presence of von der Leyen, will add yet another layer of complexity to the mix. The French president said in March that he had “suggested to von der Leyen that she accompany him to China” so they could speak “with a unified voice.”
“I don’t have a European mandate, as France has its independent diplomacy — but I’m attached to European coordination,” he said.
A joint trip with the EU head sets him apart from Olaf Scholz, the German Chancellor whom French officials criticized in private for hurrying to China for a day trip with Xi last year, focusing more on German rather than EU interests.
With von der Leyen by his side, Macron may well hope to be seen as the EU’s leading voice. In the U.S., the French president had tried that tactic and obtained some concessions on America’s green subsidies plan for the bloc.
In China, that card may be harder to play.
Clea Caulcutt reported in Paris, Stuart Lau in Brussels and Jonathan Lemire in Washington.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
Beijing: Weeks after China brokered a landmark peace deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia, Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday said he expects both countries to improve their ties as arch-rivals in the Middle East faced an array of challenges to implementing it.
Xi in his phone conversation with Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman said it is hoped that Saudi Arabia and Iran will uphold the spirit of good neighbourliness and continue to improve their relations on the basis of the results of their talks in Beijing, official media here reported.
China is ready to continue to support the follow-up process of the Saudi-Iranian talks, Xi said, referring to the China-negotiated peace deal between the arch-rivals to end their hostilities.
The agreement signed on March 11 in Beijing was regarded as a major diplomatic coup for China’s efforts to emerge as a major power rivalling the US to enlarge its strategic influence especially in the Middle East.
“The Iran-Saudi rapprochement has been touted as a momentous development in the region. But how it ultimately impacts the Middle East remains a very open question, as the long adversarial powers are fighting a proxy war in Yemen and continue to support opposing sides across the region,” said a report by the US Institute of Peace.
“Amid perceived US retrenchment from the Middle East, the deal is a diplomatic win for China as it increasingly seeks to present an alternative vision to the US-led global order,” it said.
Following the Iran-Saudi deal, Xi during his March 20 visit to Russia made a strong pitch for Russia-Ukraine peace talks to end their current war.
In his phone call with the Saudi Crown Prince, Xi said with the joint efforts of China, Saudi Arabia and Iran successfully held and achieved significant results, helping the two countries to improve their relations.
It is a significant demonstration effect on enhancing the unity and cooperation of regional countries and easing regional tensions, and thus having been widely praised by the international community, he said.
It is hoped that Saudi Arabia and Iran will uphold the spirit of good neighbourliness and continue to improve their relations on the basis of the results of their talks in Beijing, Xi said, adding that China is ready to continue to support the follow-up process of the Saudi-Iranian talks.
As Xi and Crown Prince Mohammed held talks for the successful implementation of the deal, both countries appear to be building a “more meaningful” relationship with a landmark USD 10 billion deal to construct a state-of-the-art refining complex in north-eastern Liaoning province.
Under the deal announced on Sunday, Riyadh will invest in the integrated refinery and petrochemicals complex to consolidate energy ties amid uncertainty over Russian supplies, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported on Tuesday.
For now, analysts expect China to continue buying heavily discounted Russian crude, but there are fears that US-led sanctions against Russia for its war in Ukraine “could greatly disrupt the global oil supply chain, leading to big price fluctuations”, Joey Zhou, a Shanghai-based petrochemicals analyst, told the Post.
“We expect Middle Eastern companies would be willing to participate in [more] joint ventures with Chinese firms to ensure they have a secure outlet for their oil,” he said.
“To obtain a more competitive position for feedstock costs, Chinese producers are also likely to welcome Saudi or Emirati funds by involving them in existing or new plans for integrated refinery and petrochemical complexes,” Zhou said.
The manner in which China has brokered a peace deal between arch-foes, Saudi Arabia and Iran, it may help China to emerge as a global peacemaker, eclipsing the USA.
President Xi Jinping with Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman (Mbs) in Riyadh on December 9, 2022
Last week a major diplomatic coup was staged by China, when it announced the results of its successfully mediated efforts, of bringing two old foes to the negotiating table and signing a friendship deal.
The Chinese-brokered Saudi-Iran rapprochement comes as a major diplomatic breakthrough between two regional neighbours after years of mutual animosity, suspected attacks and tales of rivalry between the two countries.
The move also represents Beijing’s first foray into Middle Eastern politics, an area that has always been regarded as a prerogative of the US, since when most of these nations become a free and independent entities, after the end of the colonial era.
On March 10, both Riyadh and Tehran announced that after seven years of severed ties, they would reopen embassies and missions within two months and implement security and economic cooperation agreements signed more than 20 years ago.
Much of the world was stunned when the two arch-rivals announced they were restoring diplomatic relations, this was not only because of the breakthrough after years of mutual animosity but because of the mediator, who played a key role in bringing the foes to the negotiating table, i.e. the Chinese government.
By this move, China has ostensibly taken up a role that the US could not have fulfilled, or it never tried to perform that role. In addition, this also comes as Beijing’s first major diplomatic foray into the Middle East mediation, an area where often rivalries are built around nuances and subtleties, which are hard to fathom for an outsider, though in recent times they have up the shape of hardnosed economic and strategic interests.
Apparently, the Saudis had been engaged in talks with Iran from around the same time as the Al Ula Summit held in Saudi in 2021, which ended the blockade of Qatar and mended the internal rifts of the Gulf Cooperation Council. In the subsequent two years, the United Arab Emirates restored its diplomatic relations with Iran and even replaced China as Iran’s top import partner; Kuwait, too, has returned its ambassador to Tehran.
The negotiations between Iran and Saudi Arabia since 2021 largely took place in Iraq and Oman. Other regional countries, including Kuwait and Pakistan, had attempted to arrange for talks between Tehran and Riyadh on numerous occasions in the past seven years, which were largely unsuccessful.
As tensions simmer between the world’s two largest economies: the US and China, US policymakers had sounded an alarm over competition and security concerns with China, but what does Beijing’s ascendance in the region mean for the Middle East – and for the larger US interests?
In recent times, China has been pushing for reconfiguring the regional security architecture in the Persian Gulf since 2020. In a UN Security Council meeting arranged by Russia in October 2020, China presented its proposal for security and stability in the Gulf region, arguing that with a multilateral effort, the region can become “an Oasis of Security.”
Iran and Saudi Arabia have agreed to resume diplomatic relations after four days of intensive previously undisclosed talks in Beijing.
Apparently, the edifice of this Chinese plan to transform into a global peacemaker seems to be the Global Security Initiative – GSI, which was unveiled by Chinese President Xi Jinping in February 2023. It is portrayed as a banner for China to reform the current international security order, especially at a time when the US is prioritising alignment with countries that share the same political system and ideology, through its Democracy Summit.
Mainly, with growing power and influence China has a fair say in international peace and security architecture building. The GSI Concept Paper released by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in February 2023 identified “bringing about security changes through political dialogue and peaceful negotiation” as core concepts and principles.
China’s successful brokering of the peace deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran has given it confidence that this track could work. The aspiration is that China can fill the gap in regions the US has failed to lead or ignore.
According to the Chinese understanding of the region, Iran and Saudi Arabia are “pivot countries” whose political, economic, and military power make them indispensable partners for Beijing, making balance between the two the most consequential strategy.
For both countries, China is the largest trading partner. Beijing has granted Tehran and Riyadh the status of comprehensive strategic partners – the highest in China’s partnership diplomacy in the Middle East.
Asad Mirza
But China’s balancing act is more articulated than just signing similar partnership agreements with both partners. While economic relations are unequivocally unbalanced in Saudi Arabia’s favour, China guarantees Iran political support and a financial lifeline in the face of US pressure. Yet, offering different goods to equal partners often shakes the balancing act. In December, the joint China-GCC communiqué that followed Chinese President Xi Jingpin’s trip to Saudi Arabia generated anger in Iran, exposing the limits of China’s diplomacy from the sidelines.
The GSI Concept Paper also emphasises the need to support political settlements of hotspot issues such as the war in Ukraine. Therefore, President Xi’s efforts to promote a political settlement to the Russia-Ukraine conflict would be essential to watch. If another success is achieved after his Russia visit, it may lend more credence to the GSI.
(Asad Mirza is a senior journalist based in New Delhi. In his career spanning more than 20 years, he was also associated with BBC Urdu Service and Khaleej Times of Dubai. Views are personal.)
Tehran: The number of the injured people in the 5.6-magnitude earthquake that rocked northwestern Iran two days back reached 239, state media reported.
The quake, which occurred near Khoy County in the province of West Azarbaijan at 6:46 a.m. local time (0316 GMT), has a depth of 8 km, according to the Iranian Seismological Centre (IRSC) quoting the Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA) report on Saturday.
Of the injured people, 50 were from Khoy County and the rest were from Salmas County, Sadeq Mahmoudi, head of Iran’s Relief and Rescue Organisation, was quoted by ISNA as saying.
He added that 219 people have been released from medical centres after receiving treatment, while 20 people, including seven from Khoy and 13 from Salmas, have been hospitalised.
Mahmoudi added tents and blankets have been sent out to residents in the quake-affected areas, Xinhua news agency reported.
On Friday, Director General of West Azarbaijan’s Housing Foundation Jafar Barzegar told Iran’s official news agency IRNA that 80 residential units in 10 villages in counties of Salmas and Khoy were damaged in the earthquake.
In late January, a 5.9-magnitude earthquake in Khoy County killed three people and injured more than 800.
Tehran: The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani has welcomed the support voiced in a statement by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) for the detente between Tehran and Riyadh.
Kanaani made the remarks on Thursday in a statement published on the Iranian Foreign Ministry’s website, reacting to a statement issued at the end of the 155th session of the GCC Ministerial Council on Wednesday in Riyadh, in which the council hailed the recent China-brokered agreement signed between Iran and Saudi Arabia on the normalisation of relations after seven years of severed ties.
He expressed hope that the agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia would play an effective role in ensuring regional stability, peace and development and promoting dialogue-based approaches in the region, Xinhua news agency reported.
Kanaani once again hailed China’s hosting of the latest round of the rapprochement talks between Iran and Saudi Arabia and the country’s contribution to the signing of the agreement, appreciating effective efforts by Baghdad and Muscat toward the detente between Tehran and Riyadh.
He said the regional states’ support for the agreement is an indication of their determination to promote diplomatic approaches in the region.
In its statement, the GCC Ministerial Council said the agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran is a step toward establishing relations between countries based on understanding, mutual respect, good neighbourliness, respect for sovereignty, and non-interference in internal affairs.
It also highlighted that the agreement aligns with the charters of the United Nations, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and international laws and norms.
China, Saudi Arabia and Iran announced on March 10 that the latter two had reached a deal which includes the agreement to resume diplomatic relations and reopen embassies and missions within two months.
Western governments are ticked off with TikTok. The Chinese-owned app loved by teenagers around the world is facing allegations of facilitating espionage, failing to protect personal data, and even of corrupting young minds.
Governments in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and across Europe have moved to ban the use of TikTok on officials’ phones in recent months. If hawks get their way, the app could face further restrictions. The White House has demanded that ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, sell the app or face an outright ban in the U.S.
But do the allegations stack up? Security officials have given few details about why they are moving against TikTok. That may be due to sensitivity around matters of national security, or it may simply indicate that there’s not much substance behind the bluster.
TikTok’s Chief Executive Officer Shou Zi Chew will be questioned in the U.S. Congress on Thursday and can expect politicians from all sides of the spectrum to probe him on TikTok’s dangers. Here are some of the themes they may pick up on:
1. Chinese access to TikTok data
Perhaps the most pressing concern is around the Chinese government’s potential access to troves of data from TikTok’s millions of users.
Western security officials have warned that ByteDance could be subject to China’s national security legislation, particularly the 2017 National Security Law that requires Chinese companies to “support, assist and cooperate” with national intelligence efforts. This law is a blank check for Chinese spy agencies, they say.
TikTok’s user data could also be accessed by the company’s hundreds of Chinese engineers and operations staff, any one of whom could be working for the state, Western officials say. In December 2022, some ByteDance employees in China and the U.S. targeted journalists at Western media outlets using the app (and were later fired).
EU institutions banned their staff from having TikTok on their work phones last month. An internal email sent to staff of the European Data Protection Supervisor, seen by POLITICO, said the move aimed “to reduce the exposure of the Commission from cyberattacks because this application is collecting so much data on mobile devices that could be used to stage an attack on the Commission.”
And the Irish Data Protection Commission, TikTok’s lead privacy regulator in the EU, is set to decide in the next few months if the company unlawfully transferred European users’ data to China.
Skeptics of the security argument say that the Chinese government could simply buy troves of user data from little-regulated brokers. American social media companies like Twitter have had their own problems preserving users’ data from the prying eyes of foreign governments, they note.
TikTok says it has never given data to the Chinese government and would decline if asked to do so. Strictly speaking, ByteDance is incorporated in the Cayman Islands, which TikTok argues would shield it from legal obligations to assist Chinese agencies. ByteDance is owned 20 percent by its founders and Chinese investors, 60 percent by global investors, and 20 percent by employees.
There’s little hope to completely stop European data from going to China | Alex Plavevski/EPA
The company has unveiled two separate plans to safeguard data. In the U.S., Project Texas is a $1.5 billion plan to build a wall between the U.S. subsidiary and its Chinese owners. The €1.2 billion European version, named Project Clover, would move most of TikTok’s European data onto servers in Europe.
Nevertheless, TikTok’s chief European lobbyist Theo Bertram also said in March that it would be “practically extremely difficult” to completely stop European data from going to China.
2. A way in for Chinese spies
If Chinese agencies can’t access TikTok’s data legally, they can just go in through the back door, Western officials allege. China’s cyber-spies are among the best in the world, and their job will be made easier if datasets or digital infrastructure are housed in their home territory.
Dutch intelligence agencies have advised government officials to uninstall apps from countries waging an “offensive cyber program” against the Netherlands — including China, but also Russia, Iran and North Korea.
Critics of the cyber espionage argument refer to a 2021 study by the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, which found that the app did not exhibit the “overtly malicious behavior” that would be expected of spyware. Still, the director of the lab said researchers lacked information on what happens to TikTok data held in China.
TikTok’s Project Texas and Project Clover include steps to assuage fears of cyber espionage, as well as legal data access. The EU plan would give a European security provider (still to be determined) the power to audit cybersecurity policies and data controls, and to restrict access to some employees. Bertram said this provider could speak with European security agencies and regulators “without us [TikTok] being involved, to give confidence that there’s nothing to hide.”
Bertram also said the company was looking to hire more engineers outside China.
3. Privacy rights
Critics of TikTok have accused the app of mass data collection, particularly in the U.S., where there are no general federal privacy rights for citizens.
In jurisdictions that do have strict privacy laws, TikTok faces widespread allegations of failing to comply with them.
The company is being investigated in Ireland, the U.K. and Canada over its handling of underage users’ data. Watchdogs in the Netherlands, Italy and France have also investigated its privacy practices around personalized advertising and for failing to limit children’s access to its platform.
TikTok has denied accusations leveled in some of the reports and argued that U.S. tech companies are collecting the same large amount of data. Meta, Amazon and others have also been given large fines for violating Europeans’ privacy.
4. Psychological operations
Perhaps the most serious accusation, and certainly the most legally novel one, is that TikTok is part of an all-encompassing Chinese civilizational struggle against the West. Its role: to spread disinformation and stultifying content in young Western minds, sowing division and apathy.
Earlier this month, the director of the U.S. National Security Agency warned that Chinese control of TikTok’s algorithm could allow the government to carry out influence operations among Western populations. TikTok says it has around 300 million active users in Europe and the U.S. The app ranked as the most downloaded in 2022.
A woman watches a video of Egyptian influencer Haneen Hossam | Khaled Desouki/AFP via Getty Images
Reports emerged in 2019 suggesting that TikTok was censoring pro-LGBTQ content and videos mentioning Tiananmen Square. ByteDance has also been accused of pushing inane time-wasting videos to Western children, in contrast to the wholesome educational content served on its Chinese app Douyin.
Besides accusations of deliberate “influence operations,” TikTok has also been criticized for failing to protect children from addiction to its app, dangerous viral challenges, and disinformation. The French regulator said last week that the app was still in the “very early stages” of content moderation. TikTok’s Italian headquarters was raided this week by the consumer protection regulator with the help of Italian law enforcement to investigate how the company protects children from viral challenges.
Researchers at Citizen Lab said that TikTok doesn’t enforce obvious censorship. Other critics of this argument have pointed out that Western-owned platforms have also been manipulated by foreign countries, such as Russia’s campaign on Facebook to influence the 2016 U.S. elections.
TikTok says it has adapted its content moderation since 2019 and regularly releases a transparency report about what it removes. The company has also touted a “transparency center” that opened in the U.S. in July 2020 and one in Ireland in 2022. It has also said it will comply with new EU content moderation rules, the Digital Services Act, which will request that platforms give access to regulators and researchers to their algorithms and data.
Additional reporting by Laura Kayali in Paris, Sue Allan in Ottawa, Brendan Bordelon in Washington, D.C., and Josh Sisco in San Francisco.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
Tehran: The Iranian court has sentenced two people to death in connection with an attack on a shrine in the southern city of Shiraz in October 2022, which claimed the lives of at least 15 people injuring 40 others.
The two men had been found guilty of charges including “spreading corruption on earth” and acting against national security, said the head of the judiciary in Fars province Kazem Mousavi, according to Mizan News.
Mohammad Ramiz Rashidi and Sayed Naeem Hashim Qatali, who received the death sentence, were “directly involved in arming, supplying, and directing the main perpetrator of the terrorist attack” on the shrine of Shah-e-Cherag on October 26, 2022.
کاظم موسوی، رییس کل دادگستری استان فارس، اعلام کرد که رسیدگی به پرونده حمله به شاهچراغ با برگزاری ۱۰ جلسه دادگاه پایان یافته و حکم در روزهای آینده و پس از پایان سال صادر خواهد شد
موسوی گفت که هر پنج متهم پرونده از اتباع خارجی هستند و وکیل تسخیری داشتند
— ایران اینترنشنال – خبر فوری (@IranIntlbrk) March 16, 2023
Three other defendants in the case were sentenced to 5, 15, and 25 years in prison for being members of ISIS.
Earlier, the main perpetrator of the attack Hamid Badakhshan, died of the injuries sustained during the arrest.
The armed attack on the Shah-e-Cherag shrine came as the Islamic Republic was rocked by unrest that erupted after the September 16 killing of Mahsa Amini in the custody of the country’s morality police.
